Five people were shot dead today in the Cibitoke area of Burundi's capital Bujumbura. The area is considered a stronghold of the opposition against President Pierre Nkurunziza, whose decision to run and obtain a controversial third term in office sparked protests that left hundreds dead.

Witnesses told the media that the 5 victims were shot by policemen who arrived in the area on a pickup truck, during a search for suspects connected to a grenade attack against security forces.

Swaziland could soon become malaria free, indicates data from a national control program, specifying that between 2000 and 2014 the number of cases dropped by 99%.

The statistics also indicate that in 2013 the nation only registered 230 cases. According to Richard Feachem, director of the Global Health Group at the University of California in San Francisco, Swaziland could eliminate malaria by the end of 2016 or in early 2017. Malaria-free certification from the World Health Organization (WHO) will however take another three years.

Over 43,700 Haitians living in Brazil will obtain permanent residency. The decision was announced by the government, specifying that immigrants registered with police and the National Committee for Refugees (CONARE) will benefit from the residency. The accord between Port-au-Prince and Brasilia was signed by the respective Ambassador and Justice and Labor minister.

Just in February of this year, 2,000 Haitians arrived in Brazilian territory. An inflow, particularly in Acre State, that increased since 2010 after the devastating earthquake that hit the country, killing 300,000.

A national peace fund, to be called Fonapaz, to remain open for at least a decade with a “special account” in the State budget: this is the proposal made by the negotiators of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrilla group in the peace process underway with the government in Havana, Cuba.

At least 15 people were killed in unrest over last weekend in Port-au-Prince, as tension mounts ahead of next Sunday's presidential election, as only confirmed yesterday by local officials to Alterpresse.

According to the news agency, the victims were killed in the same episode last Friday night in the large slum of Cité Soleil, in the north of the Haitian capital, when units of the special national police Operative Brigade of Departmental Intervention (BOID) intervened to disperse the protesters. The circumstances remain unclear.

After the violent clashes of the past days, peace efforts are mounting in Bangui to reduce tension in the city. The latest initiative was a meeting attended by various hundreds of residents, both Christians and Muslims, in the PK-5 area where the violence was largely concentrated.

The Mozambican government has signed an accord with international institutions and donors for an aid package regarding the 2016-2020 period, reports the AIM national news agency.

The deal was signed by the World Bank, African Development Bank, European Union Commission, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Austria and Canada. In respect to the previous accord for 2009-2015, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and Denmark did not sign.

A “humanitarian crisis” has unfolded on the border between Venezuela and Colombia, said the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) director for Latin America, Jessica Faieta, in regard to the bilateral crisis that has culminated in mass expulsions ordered by Caracas authorities.

“This is not the only border where there are movements of populations and contraband problems, but there are structural matters that need to be discussed”, added the UN official.

The Israeli bulldozers are at work on the separation wall in the Cremisan Valley, despite the protests of the Palestinian population and an Israeli supreme court ruling that in April blocked the project after a long legal battle.

The 'green light' arrived on July 8 for the bulldozers from the same high court, which previously had defended the rights of the Palestinians to safeguard the area, for the construction not only on land of 58 Christian families, but also a monastery and a Salesian convent, with an adjoined primary school.

Borno State authorities set up a panel of 13 experts assigned to reopen schools in this north-eastern area of Nigeria, closed for over a year due to the violence and attacks by the Islamist Boko Haram group.

According to Lagos's Guardian newspaper, the panel will present an action plan to the government within the next three weeks. The decision will then be immediately applied, in an aim to reopen all schools across the state by the start of the next school year.

At the closing of a round of peace talks with the Colombian government in Havana, the delegation head of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), Iván Márquez, announced that the guerrilla group will release minors under the age of 15 from its ranks.

Márquez stressed the renewal of hope over the progress made in the works concluded yesterday, however adding that “the state should take into consideration a unilateral truce in attacks against political and social opposition leaders”, which President Juan Manuel Santos has so far excluded.